I listened carefully and I could find only a few small differences between the recorded version and the version posted above:


THE ONE-ARMED BOATMAN AND THE GIANT SQUID
Andy Roberts

The one-armed boatman with the one right hand
Had lived all his life on the golden sand.
Let me tell you 'bout the things he did,
The one-armed boatman and the giant squid.

He took both oars in his big right fist
And pulled away in the morning mist,
Cutting the water in a dead straight line.
He rode all day and the day was fine,
Leaving the golden sand behind.

The sea beneath him and the sun so high,
He aimed for the place where the sea meets the sky.
Standing all the time, he never tired,
And the sun grew lower and the sea grew higher.

Then far away from where the seagulls call,
Sea met sky and formed a wall,
But he was not afraid when from the water slid
The fearsome shape of a giant squid.

His head and body were coloured like oil,
And as he rose, the ocean boiled,
But from the squid there came a silken sound
That calmed the sea for miles around.

"Boatman, boatman do not pause.
Your presence here demands a cause.
Now you see me here beneath the brine.
I am you father you are mine.

"Your mother was an albatross,
Sweeping wings to form a cross.
Now we lay together on a bed of foam,
And you were born to a sandy home.

"Put out your hand and take this potion
Newly formed beneath the ocean,
And drink to your parents of the sea,
And sing this sad refrain for me.

'For [or "four"?] in the morning the sky was bluer,
But the girl, yeah, the girl that I slept with remained as pure.' "

The one-armed boatman with the one right hand
Had lived all his life on the golden sand,
But when he knew, his hand it burned,
And the one-armed boatman never returned.

Oh, no, mm-mm.